New Half-Life Mod Lets You Save Everyone, But Uh…Good Luck With That

Half-Life is a classic. A genuine masterpiece. One of the best games ever made. But for the scientists and security guards trapped inside Black Mesa when all hell breaks loose, it’s a miserable experience. A new mod, Half-Life: Lemmings, will let you save many of the doomed souls—if you can manage the crowd of 40+ NPCs and get them out safely.

After a lot of work, modders Team Clown have released the first version of their Half-Life: Lemmings mod, also known as “Half-Life: But You Can Rescue Every Scientist.” Here’s the official trailer for the Half-Life Source mod:

This version of the mod is considered a demo and doesn’t yet contain the full Half-Life game. The HL Lemmings demo starts in the game’s early post-incident chapter “Unforeseen Consequences” and ends at “Apprehension.” This represents around half of Half-Life. Still, there are plenty of people to save in this big chunk of Valve’s FPS classic. In fact, according to Team Clown, there are 45 scientists and guards to find and rescue in the demo. And yes, you can have them all following you as you escape Black Mesa. Good luck with that. When you reach the end of the demo, it tallies up all the scientists you saved and didn’t save.

Team Clown has done a lot of work to make this mod function. Scientists can now pick up pistols and help Gordon Freeman fight back the alien hordes. NPCs also have new animations, letting them climb and leap like never before. The modders have also gone through the campaign and made changes to let you save NPCs. A great example of this can be seen in a walkthrough of the mod from YouTuber Phonixia. Early on in Half-Life, players encounter a scientist hiding in a dumpster. Before, he would pop up and then hide forever. Now, you can coax him out of the trash and have him join your chaotic posse of armed guards and terrified scientists. Other areas of the game have been tweaked to accommodate your crowd, including expanding the tram car in “On A Rail” to let you bring everyone with you.

Seeing a dozen scientists and guards running behind Gordon Freeman is quite a sight, and the additional fixes Team Clown has implemented in Half-Life: Source, arguably the worst way to play the classic shooter on PC, have me excited to boot up this version of the game for the first time in a long time. Don’t worry, scientists, I’m coming to save (most of) you!